


The Man Wakes up in the Morgue

by NosferatuNightingale



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NosferatuNightingale/pseuds/NosferatuNightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Hooper's last moments with Sherlock Holmes, the dead man in the morgue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Wakes up in the Morgue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Man Wakes up in the Morgue](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/115693) by oirbmeamu. 



The Man Wakes Up In the Morgue  
  
  
The second hand ticks while a faucet drips. They’re in synchrony. _Tick-drip. Tick-drip. Tick-drip_. She is keenly aware of each drop and of each movement of the clock, senses turned hyper acute and narrowed as the coffee at her elbow grew cooler.   
  
The last set of eyes on her bid their goodnight with words laced with pity. They thought her offer to stay late to work on the remains was a personal farewell to the man who saw her as a shadow in the night. They weren’t wrong, necessarily. This was a personal farewell. He did see her as like a shadow in the night. But this night, she felt more like a far-away star than a shadow; Difficult to see unless you were consciously looking for it.   
  
When the morgue changed from sunset’s burned orange to night’s incandescent blue, she rose from her perch and strolled over to the one of a series of stainless steel drawers closest to her left, inscribed with the moniker “Holmes, S.” The metal beneath her skin was cold. It was strange to imagine, sometimes, that the corporeal forms in these cabinets once rife with aspirations and memories were now drained of the electrochemical makeup that made them who they were. The beds were not cold anymore to them.  
  
She gripped the handle and tugged lightly to pull the well lubricated tray from its resting place in the wall, unveiling a fully-clothed (albeit bloodied) man zipped inside a body bag like a fetishized tableau. Her eyes ignored the security camera in the corner, which did not take a six foot genius to figure out how to turn off. The girl with the big lovesick heart and eyes full of tears makes for a convincing voice to the guards.   
  
She slowly unzips the bag and takes a moment to just…observe. Matted dried blood in his hair and under his head. Real, because you couldn’t use the corn starch and food dye trick on a man who had tended to people blown up on a battlefield. The scarf around his neck had turned a sickly purple-brown because of it. Someone, a paramedic maybe, had closed his eyes in a romantic sense of respect.   
  
The jacket was an older model. It was his, no doubt, right down to the red-thread buttonhole but it had the tiniest row of expert mending on the inside of the right collar and left sleeve. He would’ve been able to tell you exactly how the tears had happened even if he hadn’t been wearing the coat when it had been torn. She was not him, though. Very astute at reading dead bodies, though. He was clinically dead now alright, pulseless and as pale as a vampire during a full moon.   
  
She resisted the urge to touch him anymore than was necessary but couldn’t help taking care as she rolled up the sleeve of the Belstaff and the suit shirt underneath it. Methodical, she thought. Loving, an outsider would say.   
  
His face, now. Despite the blood and muck from the pavement, still a Renaissance still-life composition. The darkness of his lashes contrasted artistically to the pallor of his skin. She felt like the Prince from the story of Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White would maybe be more appropriate. Only instead of True Love’s Kiss, she held a syringe with twenty milliliters of a pale yellow substance, which she injected directly into his brachial artery.  
  
If the calculations were correct (and they were), it would only take a few minutes. And then, in a great show of antinomy, the dead would return to life.   
  
_Tick-drip. Tick-drip. Tick-drip._   
  
The report had been typed, stamped and signed. The audio recording of the autopsy, recorded. False measurements, false toxicology, false photographs and radiographs all made prior. i’s dotted and t’s crossed. She pushed a key in front of her and the computer screen illuminated a particularly lovely side view Xray of her would-be corpse’s obliterated parietal and temporal bones. She heard a siren in the distance and pushed away from the desk, meaning to have a look outside when the bag began to stir.   
  
Snapping into action, she grabbed a nearby emesis basin and ran to the gurney, thrusting it under her corpse’s chin just as he sat up groggily, paused with narrowed eyes as if he were pondering a tough decision, and proceeded to violently empty his stomach contents. She’d known that it would happen, but it was still a shock to gently place a hand on his back and feel the muscle underneath quake and spasm. She had been intimate with men before that ended badly, seen dozens and dozens of people at their worst underneath spotlights and a scalpel, even once walked in on her mate having a cry after her Dad died but despite all that, she felt embarrassed, like this was the single most worst invasion of privacy she’d ever trespassed into. The heat ignited her cheeks and dilated her pupils because now she could smell him, his subtle non-manufactured cologne tinged with copper and vomit.   
  
After the heaving stopped, she set aside the basin and handed him a ready cup of water, saying nothing when he began to shiver, only crossing the lab and withdrawing a blanket from the cupboard over the autoclave, wrapping it around his shoulders. He sniffed at it, frowned slightly, then took a sip of water, closing his eyes.   
  
She waited quietly, hands stuffed in her lab coat pockets waiting for him to drain the liquid from his cup before speaking.   
  
“Do you want to try to stand?” He didn’t reply, only swung his long limbs over the side of the table, meaning to show that he would be alright to do it on his own and proven wrong when his knees began to buckle beneath him. She was quick to grab under his arm to steady him, trying like hell to keep her worry under control, wondering how he was supposed to make it on his own out of the city like this without ending up passed out in a gutter somewhere.   
  
Before she realised what she was doing, his fingers were atop of hers, gently prying her grip from his forearm.   
  
“Thank you, Molly. I’m all right now.” His voice was hoarse but there was no mistaking its usual punctured cadence, a blend of strained amusement, annoyance and disinterest twined together.  
  
She nodded back succinctly, not trusting herself to speak right then, instead leaving him to the pile of clean(ish) clothes that she had set aside for him based on his prearranged specifications:   a pair of black loafers (cheaply made), dark slacks, Lacoste polo with a coffee stain, windbreaker a silver wristwatch (analog, not digital). A faux-leather briefcase sat on her desk, its contents including his travel papers, currency, a pair of aviator sunglasses and curiously, a old Maritime sextant and another, more expensive watch, specifically made for diving. She couldn’t even begin to guess where his first destination would be with items like that considering the charter plane she had reserved for him was heading for a tiny nondescript city in Australia.   
  
_“Home of the Beegees"_ she remembered him saying, wearing the grimace she had noticed he reserved for daytime soap operas and when it pertained to matters of…Well, _“him_ ”. The reason why he was here now.   
  
Amazing how a villain of Jim Moriarty’s caliber and mental prowess, operating with the purpose of destroying the life and relationships of his arch enemy somehow managed to tighten the bonds of trust and loyalty between the very people he sought to sever. Not that he had any idea of this, however. It upset her to think that Moriarty had blown out his stupid brains out thinking, and in some ways correctly, that he had triumphed in his final game. He had managed to conduct a successful smear campaign, sure, had managed to scatter them and break hearts but he had not managed to end their lives, which was the most important thing at the end of the day.  
  
She wished she could scrape together the bits and pieces of Jim Moriarty’s brain spattered atop of the roof and restore it to cognition long enough for him to know of his failure.  
  
She was pulled from her reverie when he arrived silently on her right, his normally overwhelming presence now turned to lassitude. He had changed and managed to wash away the dirt and blood crusted on his hair and fingers. Oddly, he had missed a spot just behind his left ear.   
  
“You’re not going to ask,” She started softly, adding signatures to the last of the documents meant to finalize his autopsy, “so I’ll just tell you that John tried his hardest to track you down after the fall and despite being concussed, he almost caught up with Anthea or…whatever you call her. I saw him from the windows as you were being hauled off and even though…”   
  
She trailed off intentionally, finishing the final ‘MD’ with a flourish and setting her pen down so she could meet his eyes as she said the rest.   
  
“Even though I know you are doing the right thing by them, that they’re alive because of you, if you had seen him as I saw him, you would never have made him watch you jump.” Her voice caught at the end inadvertently. She had seen the whole thing as well, albeit from a less traumatic angle. It still had made her heart stop to see him fall past the window. She had met dozens of families of victims who had took their own lives for one reason or another but it had never been so close to her before and feeling the way she did, knowing that John felt it too but couldn’t know the truth…The cruelty was immeasurable.   
  
He had the humanity to display a modicum of shame, but even more surprising was his lack of a snarky retort.   
  
Instead, he gestured toward her.  
  
“I hope you don’t mind keeping this for me.” The Belstaff was draped over his arm. She stood up to stand across from him and took it slowly. “Just don’t let Mycroft near it. He’s always been jealous of it. Original piece in the collection and sewn by Cooper himself, beat him out of a spot for the year. You should have seen his face.” He smiled wistfully. “Something tells me my untimely departure would be a perfect opportunity for him to turn it into a…” He waved his hand absently. “Private museum piece or something.”   
  
The idea of Mycroft’s private Sherlock Holmes collection, complete with mannequin donned in the detective’s regalia was too much to contain and her mirth erupted in a series of completely unladylike snorts and chortles. To her astonishment, he began to laugh as well, a small sound at first that ended with both of them wiping tears from the corners of their eyes.   
  
He didn’t say anything, but it crossed his mind in a peculiar flash that it was the second time in his adult life that he had genuinely laughed in the presence of someone who he wasn’t related to by blood.   
  
They stared at each other for a moment. He wondered if he asked her to come with him if she would accept the offer. He could use a sentient being to listen to his musings to facilitate the deductive process and it would take a long time to do what he needed to get done to make sure the others were safe. She had proven herself to be not completely useless with her efficient coordination of his plans and it would make traveling undercover less conspicuous if she posed as a marital or business partner.   
  
He opened his mouth, lips forming the invitation, then he made an effort to close it again. He knew what she would say which he is why he shouldn’t ask.   
  
“Sherlock? Everything okay?” Innocent Molly Hooper, with her eyes full of rainbows, enchantment and saccharine sentiments. She was the girl who more likely than not got her hair pulled frequently in primary school and cried but never reported it to anyone for fear of getting anyone into trouble.   
  
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive? Not that you’re one for following through on medical advice, but with that cocktail you’re going to be disoriented and bradycardic for the next several hours and you should be monitored…”    
  
There it was again, the invitation on the tip of his tongue. He was being uncharacteristically irrational.   
  
“No need. The trail of Moriarty’s assassins grows colder by the moment and I don’t have the luxury for electrocardiography right now unless you’d like to monitor my pulse from a side seat for the next twelve hours.”   
  
_Idiot._   
  
Her rapidly erythematous features were response enough, though miraculously she managed to stammer out a declination as well, which he ignored whilst rifling through the contents of his newly acquired suitcase to ensure everything was in order. He snapped the case closed and drummed the ends of his fingers meditatively against it, staring at one of the autopsy tables nearby. The thought occurred to him to do this through a professional, but considering the crusted blood and need for urgency…  
  
“Molly,” He turned to her decisively, interrupting her tirade of disconcerted rambling. “I need you to do one last thing for me.”   
  
“H-Hmm?”   
  
He pointedly held up a pair of surgical clippers and moved a stool away from the countertop, sitting down impatiently.   
  
It was logical. From a woman (or perhaps a man’s) perspective, his hair was as iconic as his deerstalker and coat. She wasn’t sure how good of a job she would do with a pair of surgical clippers and a distinct lack of beauty school talent, but figured if she mucked it up enough he should only blame himself.   
  
With only slight disbelief, she took the clippers from his offering hand and grasped a locket of hair between her fingers, wondering if this is how mums with boys felt the first time their sons got their baby curls cut. She worked as quickly as her ineptitude allowed, shortening the hair to a more suitable length for his new pseudo businessman persona before using a pair of scissors to define the ends. When she had finished, she stepped back and beamed at her masterpiece, frankly astonished that she hadn’t managed to give him a mohawk or turned him into a Neo-Nazi.   
  
She grabbed a small hand mirror from the exam table and held it up so he could see.   
  
“Too bad I’m nearly a consultant, I think I might just stand a chance as a posh hair stylist,” She said proudly.   
  
He ran his fingers over his scalp, frowning, turning his head this way and that. She was immensely proud; She had layered the hair into a rather 1990s-era Brad Pitt-looking cut that was very flattering with his defined features. “Too short,” was his grumpy reply.   
  
“Not at all, it looks fashionable! Not that you pay attention to that sort of thing, but this look is very Hollywood right now, and you wear it well. Stop it,” she chided, smacking his hand off a perfectly placed lock falling nicely over his brow.   
  
“It’ll suffice,” He sighed heavily, bringing himself to stand. He picked up the windbreaker draped atop a nearby surgical table and was finishing dressing when she felt the looming question finally escape her lips.   
  
“W-when do do you think you’ll be back?”   
  
“There are two, more than likely three individuals who Moriarty had direct contact with on a regular basis in order to maintain synchronous administration of his orders. These people will have direct knowledge of his terrorist network’s inter-workings but these people will not have direct knowledge of the others of similar rank in order to prevent an internal power struggle, therefore my first steps are going to involve starting where Moriarty started or wants others to think he started and picking up his elaborately woven trail from there,” He explained in one superfluous breath, darting aggressively across the lab picking up random objects and placing them into a large black duffel bag or his briefcase.   
  
She raised a brow but chose not to argue when her favourite pen disappeared inside his pocket.   
  
“That didn’t answer the question, Sherlock. You…are coming back, aren’t you? Eventually, I mean. When it’s all over.”  
  
He had apparently finished pilfering the surroundings because he proceeded to zip the duffel bag closed and slung it on his left shoulder. And then, he smiled, the one he saved to be used with the addition of a complement on something she shouldn’t care about but did, or to praise her on something she believed he didn’t really think was brilliant.   
  
The corners of her mouth began to flatten and slightly downturn in the usual way they did when she was angry. Curious, he wondered, because usually smiling that he did provoked different emotional and physical responses from her.   
  
“You don’t need to do that, you know.”   
  
“Do what?”  
  
“Manipulate me anymore.” He noticed her hands balled into fists, trembling minutely. She followed his line of sight and hid her hands away into the deep pockets of her lab coat. “What you said, back in the corridor before, about you needing me, I would have done it even if I hadn’t been…been in love with you and I know that you only needed me because really, Moriarty is right, I don’t matter to you and that…that disinterest, it gave you a potential ally that wasn’t being watched through the scope of a sniper rifle.”  
  
There were tears welling in the corners of her reddening eyes. Normally, that sort of thing annoyed him, but it was curious again, because he was confused and increasingly agitated, though not because she was crying.  
  
“Molly—“ He started.  
  
“N-No Sherlock, it’s fine. I understand. But I wanted to help you because it was the right thing to do, and don’t you dare give me a lecture on the stupidity of morality or something. And don’t…Just stop manipulating me. You’re a smart man, Sherlock. You are also incredibly blind.”   
  
“Molly…” He tried again in a tone he thought was more gentle, though it came out like a warning.  
  
“I know, I’m blubbering and rambling and you need to leave because you don’t have time for this. All I ask is that since I probably won’t be seeing you again anytime soon, please don’t…” She paused to inhale and brush at her inner canthus.  
  
“You should know that you don’t have to manipulate me anymore. You said back then…’If I wasn’t everything you think I am would you still want to help me?’, but you don’t really know what I think you are. So I’ll tell you that I will always help you because you are a good man and because there aren’t many people in this world who believe that, but I do. And even if it hurts my feelings, you don’t have to pretend around me to be interested or nice. Just…respectful, I guess. That’s all.”   
  
She turned away brusquely, gathering the report sheets into a nice orderly pile, feeling as though an enormous weight had been lifted from her. She had finally said it to his face, and he hadn’t—  
   
  
He didn’t know if it was going to be the appropriate response or not, but wanted to take the risk of retribution anyway. He sat his bag quietly down on the floor and approached her from behind as she gathered forms and photographs into something more comprehensive and placed a hand on her shoulder, gently urging her around to face him.   
 “Molly. As you are probably aware, I am not a man who initiates or responds to normal human interaction in a way that is perceived by others as normal. I am…inconsiderate, I am dispassionate about niceties, and I lack the natural balance of neurochemicals to feel emotion in ways other people do. I do not, therefore, have the capacity for this definition of “good” you are so insistent I possess. To me, the annotation of “good” does not follow any sense of moral compass or right and wrong intuition. It’s a part of my being that frankly perplexes my parents to this day.”   
  
He released his hold on her but closed the distance between them so that he needed to stare straight down in order to maintain eye contact. She carried the scents of dark coffee, formaldehyde and a flowery perfume most like manufactured by Lancome, and had not, judging by the dull greasiness of her skin slept in the last day or so. Despite, or perhaps because of this, he felt a deep sort of nostalgia by her that very moment. The time she had spend at his elbow peering into the viewer of a microscope or sipping a cup of tea while staring into a centrifuge was behind them now and he was going to miss her.  
  
He was going…to miss her? It was absurd, he thought, but there it was.  
  
“I don’t—“ She began.  
  
“What I mean,” He interrupted, “is that despite this, I have always looked toward those who others perceive to be ‘good’ and found myself emulating them in their rectitude. Mycroft, ironically was always my biggest inspiration and more recently I’ve found John…and you.”   
  
She had started to look away, whether in embarrassment or disbelief he wasn’t sure, but captured her face between his palms so she couldn’t divert her gaze.   
  
“Pay attention to me Molly Hooper, because I am only going to say this once. I am going to be back sooner than you think, and when I do they will all still not be safe. I’m not going to be able to return to Baker Street for some time, but I am going to have to follow through Moriarty’s trail to London and when I do I hope you’ll allow me safe haven then. Moriarty’s men did make a grave and costly mistake by negating your importance in my survival, and you are negating your own importance as well. If I didn’t trust you or have respect for you, Molly Hooper, I wouldn’t have allowed you access to my essentially dead corpse.”  
  
She grinned at that and a solitary tear escaped her duct, which he used his thumb to wipe away, sticking it in his mouth afterward.  
  
“Mmm,” He made a face akin to chastisement. “Especially salty. You’re dehydrated, not surprising considering you’ve had six cups of coffee in the last five hours.”  
  
“Seven, actually.” She corrected, wiping her nose with a sniffle, nodding to the chilled cup perched near her computer.   
“You haven’t finished it, so it doesn’t count. Now, I have a drive to make, a plane to catch and assassins to…assassinate’s not quite right though not outside the realm of possibility. Drink up your water, Molly Hooper, thank you for the hair cut. And leave your light on.”  
  
He grabbed his things, tossed her a cheeky wink and departed through the far door with the silent grace of a thief.   
  
“Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes. I shall.” She declared to no one in particular. “Good luck.”  
  
A man had awaken inside a morgue and now he was gone.   
  
_Tick-drip. Tick-drip._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little ditty! 
> 
> XO
> 
> -Ns.


End file.
